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6 weeks of Claude Code

blog.puzzmo.com

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Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#111

Post by [deleted] »

bboygravity wrote: post #74
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the default when it does anything is to try and create. It will read my CLAUDE.md file, it will read the code that is already there, and then it will try to write it again. I have had this happen many times (today, I had to prompt 5/6 times to read the file as a feature had already been implemented). ...and if something is genuinely complex, it will (imo) generally do a bad job. It will produce something that lo…

How do you write complex code as a human? You create abstraction layers, right? Why wouldn't that work with an llm? It takes effort, sure, but it certainly also takes effort if you have to do it "by hand"?

[deleted]

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#112

Post by arrowsmith »

danielbln wrote: post #108
arrowsmith wrote: post #101

The real power of Claude Code comes when you realise it can do far more than just write code. It can, in fact, control your entire computer. If there's a CLI tool, Claude can run it. If there's not a CLI tool... ask Claude anyway, you might be surprised. E.g. I've used Claude to crop and resize images, rip MP3s from YouTube videos, trim silence from audio files, the list goes on. It saves me incredible amounts of tim…

It's the automators dream come true. Anything can be automated, anything scripted, anything documented. Even if we're gonna use other (possibly local) models in the future, this will be my interface of choice. It's so powerful.

Yes, Claude has killed XKCD 1319:

https://xkcd.com/1319/

Automation is now trivially easy. I think of another new way to speed up my workflow — e.g. a shell script for some annoying repetitive task — and Claude oneshots it. Productivity gains built from productivity gains.

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#113

Post by queenkjuul »

acedTrex wrote: post #48

I try to use claude code a lot, I keep getting very frustrated with how slow it is and how it always does things wrong. It does not feel like its saving my any mental energy on most tasks. I do gravitate towards it for some things. But then I am sometimes burned on doing that and its not pleasent. For example, last week i decided to play with nushell, i have a somewhat simple .zshrc so i just gave it to claude and as…

This is basically my experience with it. I thought it'd be great for writing tests, but every single time, no matter how much coaxing, i end up rewriting the whole thing myself anyway. Asking it for help debugging has not yet yielded good results for me.

For extremely simple stuff, it can be useful. I'll have it parse a command's output into JSON or CSV when I'm too lazy to do it myself, or scaffold an empty new project (but like, how often am i doing that?). I've also found it good at porting simple code from like python to JavaScript or typescript to go.

But the negative experiences really far outweigh the good, for me.

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#114

Post by bongodongobob »

jansan wrote: post #6

A lot of things that the author achieved with Claude Code is migrating or refactoring of code. To me, who started using Claude Code just two weeks ago, this seems to be one of the real strengths at the moment. We have a large business app that uses an abandoned component library and contains a lot of cruft. Migrating to another component library seemed next to impossible, but with Claude Code the whole process took m…

I tried out Claude for the first time today. I have a giant powershell script that has evolved over the years, doing a bunch of different stuff. I've been meaning to refactor it for a long time, but it's such a tangled mess that every time I try, I give up fairly quickly. GPT has not been able to split it into separate modules successfully. Today I tried Claude and it refactored it into a beautifully separated collections of modules in about 30 minutes. I am extremely impressed.

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#115

Post by sidjxjxbnxkxkkx »

bboygravity wrote: post #74
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the default when it does anything is to try and create. It will read my CLAUDE.md file, it will read the code that is already there, and then it will try to write it again. I have had this happen many times (today, I had to prompt 5/6 times to read the file as a feature had already been implemented). ...and if something is genuinely complex, it will (imo) generally do a bad job. It will produce something that lo…

How do you write complex code as a human? You create abstraction layers, right? Why wouldn't that work with an llm? It takes effort, sure, but it certainly also takes effort if you have to do it "by hand"?

English is much less expressive compared to code. Typing the keys was never the slow part for senior developers.

It does work with an LLM, but you’re reinventing the wheel with these crazy markup files. We created a family of language to express how to move bits around and replacing that with English is silly.

Vibe coding is fast because you’re ok with not thinking about the code. Anytime you have to do that, an LLM is not going to be much faster.

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#116

Post by kachapopopow »

buffer1337 wrote: post #84

I've been using Claude code 12-16 hours a day since I first got it running two weeks ago. Here's the tips I've discovered: 1. Immediately change to sonnet (the cli defaults to opus for max users). I tested coding with opus extensively and it never matches the quality of sonnet. 2. Compacting often ends progress - it's difficult to get back to the same quality of code after compacting. 3. First prompt is very importan…

I had success with creating a VERY detailed plan.md file - down to how all systems connect together, letting claude-loop[1] run while I sleep and coming back in the morning manually patching it up.

[1]: https://github.com/DeprecatedLuke/claude-loop

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#117

Post by danielbln »

CharlesW wrote: post #105
mattmanser wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went on n a bit of a YouTube frenzy last weekend on getting an overview of agentic tools. A lot of people are saying that cursor is much worse than Claude Code who have used both.

Having spent a couple of weeks putting both AIDE-centric (Cursor, Windsurf) and CLI-centric (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI) options through real-world tasks, Cursor was one of the least effective tools for me. I ultimately settled on Claude Code and am very happy with it.

I realized Claude Code is the abstraction level I want to work in. Cursor et al still stick me way down into the code muck when really I only want to see the code during review. It's an implementation detail that I still have to review because it's makes mistakes, even when guided perfectly, but otherwise I want to think in interfaces, architecture, components. The low level code, don't care. Is it up to spec and conventions, does it work? Good enough for me.

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#118

Post by quentindemetz »

MattGaiser wrote: post #98
GiorgioG wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes…the old “you’re holding it wrong”. The problem is these goddamn things don’t learn, so you put in the effort to police it…and you have to keep doing that until the end of time. Better off training someone off the street to be a software engineer.

They don't learn by themselves, but you can add instructions as they make mistakes that are effectively them learning. You have to write code review feedback for juniors, so that s not an appreciable difference. > Better off training someone off the street to be a software engineer. And that person is going to quit and you have to start all over again. They also cost at least 100x the price.

The world is not a zero-sum game.

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#119

Post by holoduke »

risyachka wrote: post #109
arrowsmith wrote: post #101

The real power of Claude Code comes when you realise it can do far more than just write code. It can, in fact, control your entire computer. If there's a CLI tool, Claude can run it. If there's not a CLI tool... ask Claude anyway, you might be surprised. E.g. I've used Claude to crop and resize images, rip MP3s from YouTube videos, trim silence from audio files, the list goes on. It saves me incredible amounts of tim…

Its all great until >> I thought I would see a pretty drastic change in terms of Pull Requests, Commits and Line of Code merged in the last 6 weeks. I don’t think that holds water though The chart basically shows same output with claude than before. Which kinda represents what I felt when using LLMs. You "feel" more productive and you definitely feel "better" because you don't do the work now, you babysit the model a…

Not for me. I just reversed engineered a bluetooth protocol for a device which would taken me at least a few days capturing streams of data wireshark. Now i dumped entire dumps inside a llm and it gave me much more control finding the right offsets etc. It took me only a day.

Re: 6 weeks of Claude Code

#120

Post by wjnc »

Over the holidays I built a plan for an app that would be worthwhile to my children, oldest son first. That plan developed to several thousand words of planning documents (MVP, technical stack, layout). That was just me lying in the sun with Claude on mobile.

Today I (not a programmer, although programming for 20+ years, but mostly statistics) started building with Claude Code via Pro. Burned through my credits in about 3 hours. Got to MVP (happy tear in my eye). Actually one of the best looks I've ever gotten from my son. A look like, wow, dad, that's more than I'd ever think you could manage.

Tips:

- Plan ahead! I've had Claude tell me that a request would fit better way back on the roadmap. My roadmap manages me.

- Force Claude to build a test suite and give debugging info everywhere (backend, frontend).

- Claude and me work together on a clear TODO. He needs guidance as well as I do. It forgot a very central feature of my MVP. Do not yet know why. Asked kindly and it was built.

Questions (not specifically to you kind HN-folks, although tips are welcome):

- Why did I burn through my credits in 3 hours?

- How can I force Claude to keep committed to my plans, my CLAUDE.md, etc.

- Is there a way to ask Claude to check the entire project for consistency? And/Or should I accept that vibing will leave crusts spread around?

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